The present invention relates to a system for remote editing of documents, and in particular, to the editing of documents by remote devices having limited processing, input/output, storage, and/or network transmission capabilities.
Today's business environment often requires the need for reviewing and editing documents from remote locations. Although laptop computers are often used for such activities, developing technology now allows the users of wireless devices such as person digital assistants (PDAs) or internet cellular phones to access their company's computer network to send and receive information. It is often desirable to be able to access documents stored on a central computer or within the accessed network for review and/or minor editing, such as updating a trip report or correcting a document based on newly learned information. PDAs and internet phones limited capabilities, such as in the bandwidth through which they can send and receive information, the amount of memory available to store received information and documents, the features available for user input, and the size and type of display which constrains the appearance of a remotely accessed document. Lengthy or heavily formatted documents may require an extended time to transfer to a remote wireless device, or may exceed the memory capacity of the device. The technology incorporated in such devices also may limit the amount or complexity of document formatting that can be displayed. It may not be possible, therefore, for users to access the documents they wish to view or edit.
Existing methods of remote document management or editing typically involve the use of higher-bandwidth- or higher-memory-based equipment, such as laptop computers, or computers connected via telephone lines or other wired technology, where device capabilities are not as constrained as they are in the case of wireless devices such as PDAs and internet-capable cellular phones.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,105,042 to Aganovic et al. (issued Aug. 15, 2000) discloses a computer network that adjusts the resolution of graphic information sent to a remote user in accordance with the display capabilities of the user's equipment. The problems associated with low-bandwidth transmission channels, or with remote devices having memory- or size-limited displays are not addressed.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,996,010 (issued Nov. 30, 1999) describes a network with web-enabled remote devices in which the network server propagates information to a remote device in a particular format (e.g., HTML) that can be understood and displayed by the remote device. Transmission bandwidth and the nature of the display device are not addressed.